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Game of Thrones was nearly "destroyed" by pirates illegally streaming HBO content (www.forevergeek.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Terramaris@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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At first this article reads like your typical anti-piracy screed. It rants about how 10x more people watched GoT illegally (confusing them with lost sales) and ends with how downloading movies can get your credit card stolen.

The middle of the article however, destroys the author's case.

Time Warner (owning company of HBO) CEO Alan Bewkes stated in 2013 how becoming the most illegally streamed show in history was “better than an Emmy” and that torrenting ultimately led to more paid subscriptions.

“We’ve been dealing with this for 20, 30 years—people sharing subs, running wires down the backs of apartment buildings. Our experience is that it leads to more paying subs. I think you’re right that Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world and that’s better than an Emmy.”

The CEO of Time Warner, who knows more about the finances of his own show than ForeverGeek writer Tom Llewellyn, championed piracy and said that it brought them more subscribers rather than nearly destroying the show as the article claims.

Needless to say, Tom forwent a rebuttal in favor of writing how you can get malware from downloading it...

Anti-Piracy Propaganda: 0 Truth: 1

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[-] Varyag@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago

They lost the deal for it, after how badly received the end of GoT was. Then again, the new SW trilogy managed to be shit entirely without their help.

[-] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah, Disney rejected them to protect the trilogy, and then managed to completely destroy the trilogy between two and half directors, and both Disney and Lucasfilm constantly interfering with the screen writing. Episode 7 might have been derivative, but without Episode 8 kneecapping all of the plot setups, followed by Episode 9 kneecapping all of 8's plot redirections, it would have at least been fun.

I mean, being honest, the prequel trilogy was mostly not great. But it was fun enough that people still love it. The sequels are so disjointed that it's just hard to enjoy. Proof that even with all the money in the world, anyone can still fuck up.

[-] Varyag@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

You said it all. Episode 8 ruined everything forever. I didn't even bother trying to watch episode 9 after that, and been majorly checked out of anything SW since. The last good SW movie was Rogue One...

[-] Ryantific_theory@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

The worst part is some of the coolest moments of the trilogy happened in Episode 8. It could've been so good.

At any rate, Episode 9 may have been a letdown (more disappointing for what it could have been, than bad), but it's worth watching just to cap off the run. Solo was a pretty fun heist movie. I'd expected it to be terrible with the way it was being talked about and it turned out to be a solid popcorn flick. Not as good as Rogue One, but Rogue One was amazing.

At least they're taking a few years to to square things up before trying to release any more movies. Though, the strikes are probably gonna delay things even further.